AG, cops, MPs and pickpockets

Wednesday 14th October, 2020

Attorney General Dappula de Livera has got tough with the police. He summoned the CID Director and DIG in charge of the CID and censured them, on Monday. His consternation is understandable. The CID released former Minister Rishad Bathiudeen’s brother, Riyaj, arrested and detained for his alleged links to the Easter Sunday bombers. It has to consult the AG before releasing terror suspects, but it did not care to do so in this instance. One can only hope that the AG will not buckle under political pressure. He, however, is lucky that he cannot be transferred to Kankesanthurai.

The AG is right in having taken the CID officers to task and calling for an explanation, but it is doubtful whether he will be able to get at the truth, which will prove extremely embarrassing to the government grandees wooing Opposition MPs of easy virtue to ensure that they will have a two-thirds majority to steamroller their 20th Amendment through Parliament. The police are sure to stonewall the AG’s questions, unable to reveal who ordered them to do what they did.

The police would not have released the brother of an Opposition politician, without the AG’s permission unless they had been ordered to do so by someone above the AG. The CID bigwigs find themselves in the same predicament as their State Intelligence Service counterparts who have had to defend their former political masters whose lapses enabled the NTJ terrorists to carry out the Easter Sunday attacks with ease.

AG de Livera, who grilled a bunch of racketeers before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry which probed the bond scams, and elicited as much information as possible, may recall the plight of former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran. Everybody knew Mahendran had followed orders from on high in carrying out the bond scams, but he could not reveal who had asked him to do so. He chose to prevaricate, take the blame and flee the country. Those who released Bathiudeen’s brother, however, are not so unlucky; their political bosses are ensconced in power. If they take the blame for setting Riyaj free, they will be rewarded. One may recall that, in 2011, following a brutal police crackdown, which left a Free Trade Zone worker dead, the then IGP Mahinda Balasuriya opted for premature retirement, taking full responsibility for the incident and, thereby, helping deflect the blame from his political bosses; he was appointed Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Brazil. Former IGP Pujith Jayasundera has said that after the Easter Sunday carnage, the then President Maithripala Sirisena wanted him to be the fall guy in return for a diplomatic post among other things, but he turned down the offer.

Government MPs have received praise for being critical of the release of Bathiudeen’s brother and writing a letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, calling for a probe. In defending their government, the SLPP MPs have adopted the same ruse as pickpockets in trouble. When the members of the nimble-fingered fraternity happen to make a botch of things, run the gauntlet and face the prospect of being hauled up by the police, their confederates come, beat them harder than others do and take them away, vowing to hand them over to the police. The government MPs are trying to hijack the protests against the release of Bathiudeen’s brother and direct public anger at the police. (No sooner had the SLPP MPs, numbering 100, sent their letter to the President and the Prime Minister than it was released to the media!) They have had Police Spokesman SSP Jaliya Senaratne stripped of the post of Police Spokesman and transferred to Kankesanthurai. Whether they will be able to pull the wool over the eyes of the public with such ruses remains to be seen.